Epilogues: Alice and Tessa
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Epilogues: Alice and Tessa

Sylvie’s view

With Dungeon 404’s help, we’ve finally gained the upper hand against the Ultimate Sword. The new star mechs, empower us enormously. Now, even against invaders, it’s not been nearly as difficult to deal with as it used to be. All the basic weapons laws can be countered with shield law. Elemental laws countered with opposing element laws. With domain diffusion, we can reshape the battlefield to our favor, and bring down invaders with our own specialties. 

Giant whales? Slice-n-dice! They try to bring their oceans with them? Evaporate it! No matter what arrives, we have a counter. A solution to everything. Centuries of research has given us enormous ability! Eventually, we’ll even make the Ultimate Sword concede!

… huh? Someone’s ascending? Isn’t it too soon? Not even a millennia since I first arrived here with that fool Valia.

A momentary flash of light, in the empty void I was resting in, and two familiar faces appeared, though they were a bit different than I remembered.

“Alice? Tessa? What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be here!”

“Ah, I guess we finally did a bit too much.” Alice sure seems calm for some reason.

“Well, we did hack into the divine network.” Tessa seemed no more surprised by their sudden appearance near me.

“Um… this is basically my room here. How did you end up here?”

Alice looked at me quizzically, like she thought the answer was obvious. “Well, you’re here. Why wouldn’t I visit my student first upon arriving?”

“You could control where you ascended to?”

“We did hack the divine network. Pretty sure that wasn’t supposed to be possible.”

“I told you this would happen, Alice.”

“Yes, yes, I know. This does lend credence to your infinite worlds theory, but as I’ve said, it shouldn’t be possible to actually be infinity. There has to be a start somewhere.”

“You’re ignoring the fact that we broke causality pretty badly in our own world.”

“That’s a loop! Entirely different! It has a finite size!”

… I’m totally lost in this debate they’re having. “Could you two try explaining things in a way I can understand?”

… a few hours later…

“Okay, so if I understand correctly, you built a world surrounding a star.”

“Yup.”

“The entire world is made of trees, that convert the power of the star into everything else that’s needed.”

“Liquid sunlight. It’s the main ingredient for everything my people forge.” Tessa, forging metals from sunlight makes no freaking sense. This makes my head hurt.

Alice then spoke up, seeming to realize I wasn’t really getting it. “The key thing, is that we can make the rules of our universe, so we can make things operate however we want.”

“I get that, but I don’t get how. It’s only been a few centuries since we last spoke, and I’ve only just begun to understand how to create rules and laws for a universe.”

“Oh, right, there was a reset recently.”

“I told you those crazies were going to really mess things up by linking to the divine network.”

“Do you think the reset is what triggered the ascension?”

“The timing would be different if that was the case, Alice.”

“Unless they needed time to figure out what actually happened. I don’t think they’d have plans setup for this ahead of time, after all.”

“How does this relate to my question?”

“Oh, sorry.” Alice seemed to think a bit, as if answering me was difficult. 

Then, instead of getting an answer from Alice, like I expected, Tessa spoke: “We’ve spent a few dozen billion years developing our world.”

“What? Doesn’t that require manipulating time in the god realm?” Seriously, this was absurd if true.

“We broke causality pretty bad.” Why is Alice talking so casually about this? Why does Tessa merely seem resigned and annoyed?

“Maybe I should just explain things here, so you don’t get surprised.” I feel like asking for explanations isn’t getting me anywhere. 

“Oh, I don’t think that’s needed. This is the invasion zone, right? It’s the outer realm defense against invasion to protect the host.” How does Alice know so much?

“What do you mean by host?” 

“After becoming an immortal, true godhood is attained by creating an inner world. If one can make their world capable of sustaining inner worlds within it, additional layers of ascension are possible.”

“I’m telling you, it’s fractal. There’s no limit.” 

“Yes, yes, whatever. Anyway, our world is around fifteen layers now, and I’m pretty sure all the layers we’ve traveled through so far, are just parts of a complex internal world inside a cultivator even stronger than us.”

… this hurts my head…

“Alice, that drink you just took out… is that what I think it is?”

“Liquid sunlight. Delicious.”

Ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. “That’s like drinking pure fire! You’re a plant!” If it was Tessa drinking it, I could understand, but Alice?

“It’s not fire, it’s light. Light is an important fuel source for plants.”

… this hurts my head…

“I don’t know what to think anymore. You describe a sun surrounded by a sphere made of divine trees, and populated by golems.”

“Might be more accurate to just call them souls, since they still exist even if the body dies.”

“Death doesn’t really work like it does in ordinary worlds.”

“You two… is anything you do normal?” Really, Alice is even crazier than before. “Do I need to warn you about the Ultimate Sword?”

“Already know. He’s not a problem.” Such confidence…

“How can you be so confident, Alice?”

“Well, it wouldn’t really be a fight.”

“You really are an insidious lady, Alice. Sylvie, do you remember the stories of when Alice was a water cultivator?”

“When she used poison and weakened her foes?”

“Yes, that’s right. Her fighting style now is basically the same, and even more difficult to deal with.”

“It’s how a growth type attacks. Infections benefit a lot from life energy.”

… Alice, do you realize how disturbing it is for you to talk about killing people with infections so casually like that? I know wounds can get infected if not treated properly, but for an infection to be employed as a weapon in combat… that’s scary. Even the slightest injury would fester and get worse in seconds. *shudder*

“I’m starting to think it might be easier if you just gave me a tour. I don’t think your explanations will really give me a proper understanding of your world.”

I used to think Alice was bad at explaining her thoughts in the past, but now it seems to have gotten even worse. She’s clearly not accustomed to dealing with people who don’t know anything about her world. 

“Alright. Though I don’t think you’ll find it very interesting to look at anymore.”

“We just need to take her to a city, Alice.”

“I’m… I’m not so sure that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“We broke causality, remember? Anyone still accustomed to standard time flow is going to have a really hard time.”

“We’ve got systems built already to accommodate visitors.”

“Yeah, and all she’d see is the official tour. Hardly a useful way to learn about our world. That tour doesn’t teach anything important.”

Despite Alice’s concern, I get the feeling even the official tour would be better than listening to Alice and Tessa. What does breaking causality even mean?

“Do you have a brochure? Maybe a simple history summary I could look at? Even if it’s not a good source of information, it might be helpful.”

“... I suppose. It’s kinda boring though.” Alice thankfully did hand me a brochure to look through, even if she seemed reluctant. Just how high have her standards gotten?

Let’s see, creation myth? The story begins with the sun, and a tree that grew in orbit around it. Souls were born within the tree, and could watch and observe, as well as interact with each other, but there was little to do other than spread the growth of the tree and make more trees until the sun was surrounded fully.

“Alice, how can a tree grow without soil? Or air? Just sunlight isn’t enough.”

“A divine tree has no such problem. Just like when a human cultivates to the level of immortality, such basic issues can easily be solved as long as there’s enough energy.”

“So the entire world is powered by one sun?”

“We also exploit the energy of the vacuum of space. It’s not a lot, but it never runs out.”

“Zero point energy? The energy of space itself? That’s just theoretical in my world still… and you’re telling me this was part of the foundation of your world. You figured this out before you even finished making your world.”

“Oh, that. When building the rules of my world from scratch, that sort of thing becomes a lot easier. I don’t need a full understanding of how it works in your world, I just need to understand how it works in my world, and I deliberately made it both stronger, and easier to exploit. Though it did have side effects.”

“Yeah, the space monsters can be pretty powerful and annoying. With a wall of divine tree roots acting as a barrier though, the majority of the world is quite safe.”

Alice and Tessa just talk of mind boggling things so casually. Though it made me wonder: “When you need to fight here, how do you fight? What would you summon? I’ve been using fleets of void ships.”

““We’d summon the worlds.””

Alice and Tessa both replied at the same time… was a little weird… wait, “Worlds? Plural?” 

“Our people have colonized multiple galaxies now.”

“I think it’d be better to say they’ve manufactured multiple galaxies.”

Alice answered first, followed by Tessa… again they just… 

“Sorry, I guess we’re getting a bit ahead of your understanding.”

“Yeah, Alice, you really are. You manufacture galaxies?”

“I didn’t really want to deal with trying to handle a proper normal universe, so we chose to keep ours quite small at the start. Just one star, and lots of empty space.”

“We learned how to use the power and resources available to build more stars.”

“It didn’t really take off until we learned time folding techniques.”

“It’s really not fair when researchers can communicate directly with the universe creator, and request changes to the rules.”

“Well, I find their work fascinating, and it did lead us to some amazing advancements.”

“Are you saying I could ask Valia to change the laws of our universe?”

“Theoretically. I doubt she’d really understand it well enough to do it. The rules of her universe seemed more like she’d just copied someone else’s work without understanding it well.”

“Oh, we can teach her. She probably won’t like it, but we can teach her.”

I couldn’t help but grin imagining Valia’s reaction to my newly forming plan. 

Valia’s view

We have new visitors. Alice and Tessa. Two people I’m not keen on seeing. I never should’ve summoned Alice. She really isn’t anything like the heroes of old tales.

Yet, the ultimate sword (such a silly title, yet it suits his sword obsession) still wants to challenge me?

“Why don’t you challenge the newcomers?”

“Wouldn’t be a fight. One’s a tree, and the other is a forge. Fighting a tree is silly, and forges can weaken or strengthen swords easily. She’d make a good ally, but I do not want to fight a forge.”

“Eh? Then what am I?”

“An idiot.”

Damnit, I walked right into that one. “You bastard!” I really wish I could come up with better retorts than that. He is such a jerk.

Alice’s view

… wait, you’re actually putting me in charge of narration? Well, that’s a silly thing to do. I thought you’d just established that no one ever understands me? Well, I suppose I can give it a try. No guarantees.

I suppose the obvious reason for this, is to get a better explanation of the world Tessa and I made. I am the greatest expert on the topic after all. Well, long story short: Tessa made a sun, I made a super awesome tree, then together we created a way for the trees and the sun to collaborate to create new life. Metallic life… sorta.

Souls are born within the trees, and learn a little about the world. The number of souls any given tree will support is finite. Upon reaching the limit, a tree will not produce any more souls, unless the existing ones disappear or die. Souls do not generally die. Disappearances are more common, but also very rare, and typically lead to death, as the trees are a fairly vital part of their long term survival. 

Destruction of a soul (killing it) is generally reserved for only the most heinous of criminals. Otherwise, these souls pretty much live forever. 

Some people answer the question of “Why must people die?” with “That’s just how it is.” I refused that answer. Though, admittedly, there were some issues to work out at first. Ensuring people are still able and willing to conjure up new ideas is pretty important.

Now, as for the metallic life I mentioned: While in a tree, a soul can use the tree to create a body from the harvested liquid sunlight, and solidified space. These two resources enable the creation of almost any material, and metals are pretty useful and sturdy. Early life looked much like primitive magical golems, but in time they learned how to craft better and more sophisticated bodies, and eventually developed far more advanced bodies. 

It was rather fascinating to watch them learn to construct specialized bodies for things like high speed movement or transportation of goods. The ability to transfer from one body to another was originally not something easy, but as they got better and better at it, it became fairly routine. I’ve heard of people referring to a skilled user using a tool as if it were an extension of the body, but in this world, tools really were made into a part of the body at times. Taxi’s didn’t need a driver seat, because the driver would be the taxi itself.

All of that became rather moot though once the advanced temporal theories really took off. Instead of waiting for our people to learn to warp time themselves, I simply studied and applied their discoveries to make changes directly in the world. Learning how to bend and warp time until I could compress the whole thing into a single moment of infinity… well, we’ve reached the limits of what we can learn on our own, without outside help. I mean that quite literally: We have learned all that we can learn, with just our own world in isolation. Infinity is not a small thing.

… I’m not being clear enough? Well, I’m sorry, but I really don’t think it’s feasible to explain twelve dimensional temporal maps to a person stuck in linear time, and that’s the simple version of the explanation, and doesn’t even go into the really complex stuff. No matter how good of a translator I use, if I try to talk about [untranslatable] or [untranslatable] it just comes out as gibberish, when talking to someone who doesn’t even have words for this stuff. I really just don’t know how to explain it right, when you don’t even understand [untranslatable].

...

Tessa’s view

As always, Alice forgets to mention some really important stuff. Like how the entire reason we have so much power, is because we built a fractal power system with worlds inside of worlds inside of worlds, etc. In fact, that’s the requirement to reach this battlerealm: Having another world inside the world. Due to cultivators being kicked out upon completing that, I don’t think Valia’s world would’ve caused her to ascend here if not for Alice messing with the world’s development. Pretty sure Valia’s ascension was caused by simulated worlds being developed within her world’s internet. Though simulating a world with enough detail and accuracy to cause ascension would not be a simple thing, as the world needs to be capable of generating divine power.

Also, Alice isn’t quite right about it being impossible for us to learn more. It’s just that learning more requires changing ourselves in ways we are unwilling to. Our knowledge is limited by what we are willing to allow into our world. 

A long long time ago, in a world of trees and metal golems…

???’s view

War is always a messy affair. Thankfully, we won this battle, so the spoils are ours. All that metal left lying in the field is ours. Though, I can’t help but wonder how the Wind Blaster team manages to fund these attacks. 

All the metal that was spent on this attack is now ours. Sure, some is wasted in processing, evaporated in the battle, or just plain lost somewhere, but in the end, as long as the defender wins, they can expect to have more resources afterwards than they started with. While the attacker just loses everything they sent in that got destroyed. The Wind Blaster team is no exception, and their love of suicidal high speed charges just makes the issue even worse. 

“Sir! We found a problem! Someone managed to tunnel into our metal storage and stole most of it!”

Ah… shit. I guess that explains it. How’d they tunnel in without being noticed though? Diggers tend to be pretty loud.

***Author’s Note***

It’s hard to write a character that knows more than I do… Also: There has been a lot of war in Alice and Tessa’s world for a very simple reason: Without real death, there is little reason not to wage war over resources. It’s practically a game.

I don’t really feel like I’ve done a good job explaining anything here. Though, it’s such an absurd thing that I suppose it’s normal for any explanation to be a bad one.

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